Big City Plan Talk A Place To Talk About Birmingham’s Big City Plan

Original Document

Central areas include (among many things) high value offices and commercial uses, a varied and large retail offer, high density city centre living, leisure, tourism and cultural provision. Traditionally these were contained within the Historic Core at the heart of the city, an area mostly bounded by the Queensway.

However, the city is not static and Birmingham’s growing role as a global city will require a wider area to accommodate these central area uses. In fact, this has already been happening for some time. The Queensway has become more permeable in recent years, and in the last 10 years central area uses have expanded to the west around Brindleyplace. Arguably, this process has been going on for almost 50 years if the large scale office development in the Fiveways area is taken into account. More recently, central area functions have begun to expand to the east.

The expansion to the west in the form of Brindleyplace has been very successful and is easily walkable from New Street. The Mailbox, Baskerville House and the leisure uses along Broad Street have also expanded the city’s central area functions westwards. The iconic Bullring development to the south has made a very positive contribution towards raising the profile of Birmingham. It integrates well with the retail offer in New Street.

During the life of the plan, there will be further expansion of the central area functions beyond the historic core. The Big City Plan will be the catalyst for expanding the scale and improving the quality of these functions. The next location for central area expansion is Eastside. The Masshouse development and Millennium Point have already started this process.

There is also huge potential to improve the built environment to the south of the Historic Core, beginning with the redevelopment of New Street Station. This transformational development will be fundamental to raising the profile of Birmingham as a global city. The proposals for New Street Station will be immensely beneficial to improving the arrival experience into the city.

In addition, the Wholesale Markets are a very large site close to the heart of the city. These two big opportunities will form the basis of a major transformation to the south of the traditional Historic Core. They form two poles of growth which can be used to transform the quality of the streets, spaces and transport links in the whole of the southern part of the city centre. To get the most out of these opportunities, New Street Station and the Wholesale Markets must be considered together.

Thus although the structure of the plan is based on the defined policy areas for the sake of convenience, central area uses will expand beyond the historic core into neighbouring areas of the city centre, and in particular into Eastside, Westside and Southside. The intention is that these areas will develop vibrant distinctive characters: for example the Gay Village and Chinese Quarter in Southside, leisure uses in Westside, the learning quarter within Eastside and food and specialist functions and markets in Southside.

In reading the following sections, therefore, it is important to bear in mind that, whilst the policy areas are defined by lines drawn on a plan, the activities within the city are changing and dynamic and the central area functions will not be confined by these boundaries. An important part of the Big City Plan will be to allow for the growth and expansion of Birmingham’s central area functions.

Original Document

The options in the emerging Birmingham Core Strategy focus office growth within the city centre. The city centre has a well defined belt of major office buildings, which stretches from the Fiveways area through Brindleyplace and Broad Street, to Snow Hill and Colmore Row, The last phase of Brindleyplace is under construction and there are several major schemes recently completed or under construction at Colmore Plaza and Snow Hill. Eastside and the southern end of the Jewellery Quarter are emerging parts of this office belt, with the latter forming a focus for professional offices.

Original Document

Centro, in partnership with Birmingham City Council, has identified four metro routes that will radiate from the city centre:

• The existing Line 1 running between Snow Hill and Wolverhampton.
• The planned Line 1 extension heading through the city centre to New Street Station then heading along Broad Street to terminate at Edgbaston and later at Junction 3 of the M5.
• A route to Birmingham International Airport extension running along Digbeth High Street.
• A route to Great Barr, using the alignment of New Town Row.

Centro has obtained a Transport Works Act Order, enabling them to progress with the extension of Line 1 along Bull Street, Corporation Street, through Victoria Square to Broad Street. This option would require the removal of buses from Corporation Street in favour of the tram, but would not permit its full pedestrianisation. Centro predicts that this alignment will lead to major increases in Line1 patronage simply through creating a direct Metro link to the New Street Gateway. To pick up further routes a one-way city centre loop is proposed to serve Southside, Eastside and Westside. (See Figure 4.1 for alternative metro routes)

Figure 4.1 shows the proposed future metro network developed by Centro in partnership with BCC. As well as the Line 1 extension referred to above, a one-way city core loop is proposed serving Eastside, Southside and Westside quarters. The route, running around the south of the Bull Ring and immediately north of the international markets, will greatly improve tram system capacity and improve public transport accessibility in these areas. This loop would be required to deliver the airport extension from Digbeth High Street. A further extension is planned out to Great Barr via New Town Row. A route along Sherlock Street is also shown, which would infill a route to the south.

An alternative to Metro for some routes would be to implement ‘Bus Rapid Transit’. While the transport and regeneration benefits of trams are well understood in many modern cities, the costs and practical issues surrounding their implementation are considerable, while they can have adverse impacts on other modes (e.g. on pedestrians in crowded streets). Bus Rapid Transit is an intermediate mode between buses and trams, with optional features such as better vehicles, enhanced priority through guideways, and less frequent stops than conventional buses. BRT may be a more cost-effective alternative to tram in certain locations/corridors. Centro have suggested routes to Bartley Green, Chelmsley Wood and (as a pre-metro) to Perry Barr.

Original Document

Westside as an entertainment quarter. Broad Street would become a major entertainment boulevard. Much more commercial leisure development would be encouraged with larger scale buildings, wide pavements and vibrant advertising along the street to create the character of a brash and buzzy entertainment boulevard.